


What We Need

by Avon7



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Families of Choice, Gen, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 13:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12254898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avon7/pseuds/Avon7
Summary: Sometimes we don't even know what we need until we have it.





	What We Need

It’s true that he thinks of CJ as a daughter; it’s also true that there are days when four daughters are too many. He looks back across the desk at the three faces confronting him. Zoey looks a mixture of stubborn and excited; the same face he saw when she was five and he caught her wobbling down the drive on a big sister’s two-wheeler. Ellie is her usual combination of determined and uncertain; it breaks his heart every time. Why doesn’t she have the certainty of her place in the world and in their hearts that her sisters do? CJ is holding back a smile, damn her, as though she knows they have him. The only daughter missing is Lizzie and he’s quite sure she’s just a well-primed phone call away; her reasons will be all sensible, they always are. Even when she wanted to get married straight out of college and have a baby when her friends were still committing to nothing longer lasting than a new shade of nail polish there were sensible arguments to back her up. The 49th Airborne might work for him, but President Bartlet knows when he is beaten.

 

“All right,” he says, hands up. “A dog. A small dog. A small _well-trained_ dog.”

 

He smiles then, watching three of his daughters hug. Even as Zoey pulls out her cell and squeals, “Lizzie, we got him!” he hears Ellie whisper thank you against CJ’s shoulder. CJ looks over her head to smile at him, tenderly this time, and he wonders anew at the strange journeys of fate that found his family the daughter they needed.


End file.
